


The Interview

by Nik_Knight



Category: Team Fortress 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24415897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nik_Knight/pseuds/Nik_Knight
Summary: With no documents or evidence of existing before 1968, rumors have spread that the Hacker came out out of nowhere. Her entry into Team Fortress Industries had to start somewhere, and like for most mercenaries, it began with an interview with the institution's most feared woman: The Administrator.
Kudos: 5





	The Interview

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a little piece I wrote up for the folks at the Tenth Class Discord Server. Enjoy!

Interview

Waking up on the ground in a foreign place wasn’t a walk in the park, but she had plenty of practice at it. She coughed at the dry, dusty air that seemed to have filled her lungs while she was knocked out. The hot desert sun threatened to blind her the moment she opened her eyes. The girl sat up and quickly pulled her hood over her head to block out the harshest of the sun’s rays.

Once she could properly see again, she took in her surroundings. Dirt, cacti, sun, and more dirt. Yep, she was in a desert. Luckily, there was a large, ominous building off about a hundred yards from her. Not particularly fond of the heat and the blinding light, she got up onto her feet and jogged over to the big, secret-facility-looking building.

The building was wide and heavily guarded, most likely some military base of sorts. As she approached the fence, she noticed it was an old-fashioned automatic gate, the kind that needed a coded keycard to open. She stepped over to the terminal that scanned the keycards and took a closer look. Though the tech was old school, the actual hardware looked brand new. The girl simply shrugged and pulled her phone from her pocket. She opened up the code-hacking app and pressed her phone to the terminal. The device took a few moments to emulate a passcode, but soon the light on the terminal turned green, and the gates pulled open to let her in.

After stepping into the building by using the same code, she noticed the dark, secretive style that reminded her a tiny bit of Aperture Science, if not quite a bit older looking in style. Walking around the halls were people in suits, men in heavy riot armor, or dressed in purple, for some reason. None of them seemed to notice the girl in red, or if they did, they simply walked past without a second glance. For being in the middle of the desert, this placed sure was busy.

Resting her hands in her hoodie pocket, she waltzed over to a set of waiting chairs in front of a cork board decorated with fliers and important notices. The girl sighed in relief at seeing the words in English, happy she didn’t land somewhere where she couldn’t speak the language. Hoping to get her bearings on the new environment, she tore a flier off the board and sat down to read it.

Tired of your boring, violence-free life? Want a challenge that will test the limits of your strength, endurance, and sanity? Want to get paid for killing people? Not the type to ask questions? Then this is the job for you! Send your resume to the address below to join Team Fortress Industries and become a mercenary today!

A mercenary network? This wasn’t quite something she was familiar with; didn’t mercenaries work alone? She had heard of elite, private teams of ex-military buffs that did dirty work that others wouldn’t, but this didn’t look anything like that. She wasn’t quite sure what this looked like, but it wasn’t like anything she had heard of before. That’d probably explain all the secrecy and weirdness of the place.

An office door to her left opened up, and the sound of heels approaching her startled her into looking up. Before her was a young woman, looking perhaps only a few years older than herself. She was dressed in a petite, purple dress and wore cat-eye glasses that were the slightest bit crooked on her face. She gave a friendly smile to the younger girl and shifted a clipboard in her hands as she spoke.

“Good morning! You must be here for the Tenth-Class position, right? Sorry, I didn’t know we had any other appointments today, but our earlier appointment got... canceled, so I think we might be able to squeeze you in if you’re ready.”

The younger girl blinked up at the woman. Her outfit screamed secretary, but her presence felt like there was more here than just someone who answered calls and made appointments. The girl wasn’t sure exactly what to say, but to seem like less of an intruder, and more like someone who was supposed to be there, she smiled back and stood to shake the woman’s hand.

“Uh, yeah, that’d be great! I’d really appreciate that miss, um...”

“Pauling.” She adjusted her glasses and took the girl’s outstretched hand. “Or Miss. P, whichever is easier.” When she pulled her hand back, she turned towards the hall and gestured for the girl to follow. “It doesn’t look like we have any of your information, so you’re going to have to fill out a form before you meet the Administrator. It’s just the basic stuff, you know, so you should get it done before she’s ready for you.” Miss Pauling pulled a form from her clipboard and handed it to the girl along with a pen.

Doing her best to fill out the form as they walked, she realized this asked for more than just “basic stuff.” It required blood types, kill counts, criminal records, health records, countries that the person is banned from entering, and a lot of other sketchy entries. She quickly scribbled in the blanks the best she could before they reached a large steel door.

“You done? Good. It’s best not to keep her waiting, trust me.” Pauling took the papers from her, then turned to another terminal beside the door. It looked like it required a retinal scan and a fingerprint before the doors could open. After opening the door, Pauling stepped to the side and motioned for the younger girl to enter. “Make sure to be quick with your answers. She doesn’t appreciate waiting for anyone. Good luck.”

The girl took a gulp and stepped inside. The doors closed right behind her, almost catching her hoodie between them. She quickly walked through the short corridor into what looked like some sort of surveillance room. One wall of the room was completely covered in monitors, detailing scenes from a whole host of places. Every few moments the screens would switch to some other setting. To the girl it looked like a whole unorganized mess. How could you even tell what you were looking at? How are you supposed to focus on all of these at once? It was a bit excessive if you asked her.

“Were you trying to impress me?” A cold, eerie voice sounded. It came from a desk in front of the monitors. Behind the desk in an over-the-top, purple chair sat an old woman, also dressed in purple. She was smoking, and frankly, she reminded the girl of Cruella de Vil.

“Sorry, ‘impress you?’” The girl asked, not sure what this extremely scary woman wanted.

“I see everything; you must know that. You must have known I’d see you get through the gate without proper access. Were you trying to impress me?” She took another drag of the cigarette and continued to scowl at the girl.

“To be honest, ma’am, I was tryin’ to get out of the sun. It’s hot and bright, and I was not a fan of it.” She stepped up to the desk and stood before the purple Cruella.

“Hm. At least you aren’t an enemy spy, like the last person to have this appointment.” The old woman looked disdainfully at a trail of blood on the floor that led out the opposite way the girl came in. The girl looked at it as well.

“Gross.”

“Tell me,” the old woman said, leaning forward with a hint of interest in her voice. “What position are you trying to fill, hm? What kind of Tenth Class are you? We have the scout class filled with annoying young people already. What do you have?”

The girl brought a hand to her chin and thought. “Well... this is a mercenary position, right? I’m not particularly strong... or fast...”

“You’re not impressing me.”

“Oh! I know! I’m smart!” The girl happily exclaimed.

“We have the world’s smartest people already. Engineers, doctors, you name it. Simply being smart isn’t going to cut it. What do you have that the others don’t?”

The girl wasn’t quite sure what the “others” had, but she had to offer up something, less she become the next bloody stain on the ground. Her eyes darted around for something, anything to give her an idea. Then, on the Administrator’s desk, she saw a calendar.

April 27th, 1968, by the look of it.

The girl smirked.

“Yes, ma’am, there is something, though it’s better shown than said. May I...?”

The old woman sat back in her fancy chair and crossed her arms. “You have thirty seconds.”

The girl whipped out her phone from her pocket and opened an app. Within seconds, it detected the building’s main computer system and set it to Skull_Threat_DOS_attk.exe. The girl returned the phone comfortably to her pocket and turned her head back to the old woman.

The Administrator, still unimpressed, raised an eyebrow. The girl then pointed a finger to the monitors behind her.

The woman turned her chair to find the screens completely overtaken by laughing skulls. The skulls were wearing a cat hat similar to the one the girl was wearing. They kept laughing, the speakers spitting out a low, computerized, “HA, HA, HA!”

The woman quickly turned to her control panel and flipped every switch and pushed every button available, to no avail. The skulls still laughed. She looked to the little girl in slight awe as well as annoyance. “What game are you playing at, girl?”

The young woman simply pulled out her phone again and tapped it a few times. “Sorry, you said I could show you.” Instantly the screens buzzed into static, then quickly went back to their seemingly random surveillance.

“Hm...” The Administrator hummed. “Alright... you’ve impressed me, hacker.” She turned toward the girl fully and took another long drag. “Teufort. Tomorrow after battle. You will meet your team and be ready to fight the next day. Do you understand, Hacker?”

“Oh! Um, yeah, er, yes, ma’am.” The hacker nodded. She didn’t really understand, but if saying so got her away from the Crazy-Old-Purple-Psycho-Lady, then she’d say it in a heartbeat.

“Good. Pauling will brief you in everything you need to know.” She waved the girl off dismissively. The hacker nodded and followed the blood trail to the exit.

“And Hacker?” The old woman called out, making the girl pause in her hasty retreat.

“You’re a rather curious figure. You don’t even to seemed to have planned for this interview, or for this job, in fact...”

The Hacker simply shrugged, but underneath she could feel her stomach doing anxious flips. “Oh, really?”

“Not that I particularly care one way or another, but I am curious... who are you?”

“Oh, that’s an easy one,” she smiled. “I’m Nikole Knight, but my friends call me Nik.” And with that, Nikki waved to the creepy old lady, and stepped out the door.


End file.
